So Danny And I Made A Film Together

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When Danny Boyle and I were making his latest film Yesterday, I mentioned to him that he was my favourite director of all time. Huh, what? Oh, I hadn't told you that Danny and I made this film together? Oh right, okay, err in which case I spent a day on set with the D-Meister as he directed me in his latest film. That's pretty cool, right? What a brag. Not only has Danny Boyle also directed Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Fassbender, and Ewan McGregor but now he can tell people that he's also worked with me. Admittedly I was an extra and his direction was, "instead of standing right here by me, why don't you go and stand over there instead", but it counts. Anyway, so when I was chatting to him at his hotel afterwards after I'd waited four hours for him to leave the set, chased him to his car, and forced a taxi-driver at gunpoint to follow where he went, I told him that he was my favourite director of all time. He said "thanks", as though he hears it all the time and as though I was only saying it to kiss his arse because he was right there. But in my case, he really is my favourite director. Trainspotting is my all-time favourite film, I swear that 28 Days Later reinvented the horror genre, and I will fight to the fucking death with anybody that is dismissive of The Beach. But the bit in that film in which DiCaprio hallucinates that he's in a computer game is a bit shit? What the fuck did you just say? Right, you, me, tooled up, by the bins, right fucking now!

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I Saw John Carpenter Live!

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As John Carpenter and his band launched into their live rendition of the theme from his ghostly masterpiece The Fog, some genius thought it'd be a good idea to turn on the smoke machine. And they were right. It was fucking genius. Seeing Carpenter play that piece of music with footage from the film projected onto a large screen behind him, while mist slowly descended over the room, was one of the many highlights of the Liverpool gig that I saw him at on the 28^th of October. I can't say that any ghost-pirates appeared from the fog this time, however it's been so long since I last ate any fruit that it wouldn't surprise me if I had fucking scurvy at this point. Getting into the gig had proven to be more of a ball-ache than I'd imagined thanks to Google-maps providing the wrong location, one Taxi-driver refusing to take us because “he'd be fucked by the Hackneys”, and then finding ourselves stuck outside the most badly organised venue that I've ever been to. People with paper tickets were allowed straight in whereas those with E-tickets had to stand outside until twenty-minutes past the gig's original start time for some reason. To quote a fellow E-ticket queuer; “it's like we're the working class and this venue thinks it's the fucking Titanic”.

I Saw A Film Today, Oh Boy!

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For the sake of context, I feel it might be worth mentioning that I live in a place called The Wirral which is directly opposite Liverpool. I'm close enough that I can get away with taking the piss out of them, but far enough away that I'm thankfully not actually one of them. Essentially, Wirral is perfectly located to keep an eye on whatever trouble the scousers might be getting up to, but with the river Mersey keeping us just far enough apart for the sake of 'Health and Safety'. People always associate the River Mersey with Liverpool but it's actually just as much ours as it is theirs. You've heard of the Mersey Ferry I'm guessing? Well, that'll pretty much take you straight to us like the last chopper out of Saigon. So basically, I've lived my life having to constantly hear our neighbouring Liverpudlians screaming about The fucking Beatles from over the river but without actually coming from the same place as them to give that much of a shit. I mean, I like The Beatles, don't get me wrong, but you know what Liverpool is like. If a scouser won a line of Bingo when he was on holiday he'd be championed back as a local fucking hero.